Indeed

Today was a good day.

Made progress on the ACPI stuff. I created a battery runlevel that enables power saving features on my Wireless card and harddrive while on battery power. Also added settings to my xorg conf file to turn off the backlight when idle for 10 minutes. Haven't gotten to messing with the cpu governors quite yet, although I did compile them all into my kernel for later fun and joy. I'll accomplish that tomorrow. The thing I really want to figure out is the backlight dimming. The power management guide seems to cover only IBM and Toshiba laptops for this particular point, but I could be wrong. Going to have to investigate that further. Also need to waste a day or so testing Windows vs. Linux once I get this all set up; just to see which one lasts longer.

So basically I mostly accomplished my goal, but I found a lot more I want to do. That seems to be the nature of all computing stuff. Goal for tomorrow is to finish up with the CPU governors and get my MySQL setup finally working correctly for the magic site. I've been putting that off too long.

Haven't read anything too insightful today. Most of it was consumed with watching Stargate Season 9 nonstop. Probably should have done a bit less of that and a bit more playing with linux, but oh well, I am on break (of sorts).

Anyway, 3:18 AM = bedtime!

Un Mes

Sadly, it has been nearly a month since I updated this blog. A lot has happened since then, but sadly I think it will be lost to history, because I don't want to waste this post of one of those silly diary updates that people do when they haven't posted in forever. Instead, I want to use this post to motivate myself to create more posts.

Yep, I have been reading at StevePavlina.com again. Specifically, his six part series on Self-Discipline (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6), which I feel I am sorely lacking.

While I have only just finished Part 3, I wanted to record my thoughts so far before I lose them to new thoughts. I believe I have the Acceptance part of the process down pretty well, although it honestly took a dota game yesterday to fully cement that. I would like to continue enjoying dota and gaming in general, but I realize that I am playing nonstop mainly because I don't create anything else meaningful to do. I play so much because it allows me to escape the fact that I don't do anything productive most days. I realized this yesterday when I was playing a game and realized I didn't even really want to be playing, but that I was because I had nothing else to do. There is always something else to do, I just need to create that something.

The Willpower part of the process got me thinking and scheming. The basic idea is that you can muster the willpower to do anything for a short time, but that willpower is always unsustainable. So, you use your precious short term willpower to create a better environment for you to get things done in... don't waste the willpower on doing the things themselves. For instance, if you want to start working out every day, don't use the willpower everyday to force yourself to go. Use the willpower to sit down and rearrange your schedule so you have a set time to go every day. That way, when the time comes, you will have no alternative activity to offer an excuse to put off or skip that day. You will simply say to yourself, 10am is my scheduled work out time. It still will take some effort to go, but much less than it would to muster the willpower every day to go to the gym in the middle of all your other commitments.

So my first use of Willpower, since I seem to suddenly have a bit of it, is to make a modest goal for myself. The goal, I think, is a good one. I want to post in this blog once a day, right before bed, detailing one productive thing I accomplished that day, AND make a new goal for the next day. This way, I (and anyone reading this) can hold myself accountable for accomplishing the goal each day. Also, the process of reflecting on a goal will help lead me to new goals. Lastly, by setting a new goal daily, I force myself to set small enough goals that they can be achieved in 24 hours. This prevents the insurmountable odds feeling.

Not all of my goals will be lofty. In fact, pretty sure 24 hour goals can't be lofty, but the point is to get in the habit of setting goals, planning their execution, and then actually executing.

My first goal is to go through the Power Management Guide on gentoo.org and set up ACPI correctly on my laptop. Now that my sound drivers work correctly (last night's achievement), I will probably be spending more time in linux and would like the battery to last 7-8 hours (like it does in Windows) versus the current 2-3 hours. I think the main culprit is that linux doesn't actually turn off the backlight when it sleeps, it just blacks the screen. The backlight in a modern laptop uses about 40% of the power, so getting this to work properly would probably add an hour or two of battery life all by itself. Then there are the way more technical things like fixing the broken DSDT written by Compaq.

Anyway, off I go to read the other three parts in the series. If I feel like writing more later, I will. If not, I'll be back tomorrow to let you know how my ACPI work went.

Sweet Victory

Anyone who missed the KU/Florida game tonight should be sad. That was one of the best games I have seen. And now it might be bedtime.

Me Encuentro Mal

Well it is Thanksgiving. This year I can be thankful for all my friends for listening to me bitch about my job. I can also be thankful that I quit said job, even if only partially. I am thankful for the glorious year of Magic that was 2006. Spain will probably get in the way of that a bit in 2007, but I hope to keep building decks, even if only on paper for a bit. Also, obviously I can be thankful for getting to go to Spain again. Yay for that!

Today I am decently sick though, with a nasty sore throat and unending tiredness. Since my Grandma is in such bad shape, I didn't get to go to the family dinner because I didn't want to make her sick (and possibly kill her), so I stayed home and slept. Hoping that it will clear up in a few days and I can go visit. Right now I'm waiting for my parents and brother to get home so we can eat some dinner. Mom has a turkey that is bigger than most dogs I know... just for the four of us!

Made a fun Magic deck the other day, much to Bob's dismay. Might be the best that one of my kooky ideas has worked since the Deck Deck and my Black Deck. I still need to work with my Dark Depths Deck and my Green Black Deck to get them going better, although I haven't tried them 1v1 yet. Also have random ideas for more strange decks that I need to put together. All hail the glory of Magic!

Also been working out a lot lately. Feeling much better for it. And, get this, I've been eating at home! Crazy I know.

Since Bob, John, and I are all stuck in Lawrence without anyone else, this weekend should be a fun mix of War3, Magic, and Movies. Silly people and their going out of town for the holidays. Hopefully even going to get a free day to do some programming. We shall see.

Now I will leave you with the greatest trailer of all time. Can't wait for this movie, although I hear there will be no NIN on the soundtrack. At least they had the good sense to use Just Like You Imagined in the trailer.

Productivity

So I finally started working on my work requests at work last night, in order to get them done fairly close to the deadline. I say fairly close because the deadline was yesterday, but they moved it up a full month on me, so they will just have to wait. Granted, had I been at all motivated or excited about my job for the last six months, I would've had everything done way before the deadline, no matter when it was, but oh well. In about 6 hours of work I got 7 of my 14 requests done. Also have a pretty good lead on two others, leaving 5 to start. There should be no reason not to have them all done by Monday for the testers to get on. Guess it all just depends on how much Magic and Hero Wars I get in this weekend, since that is now my social life!

Speaking of Magic... got a whole new deck built today. I am proud to only own 13 of the 60 cards I need for it. It's a true printed spectacle! Bob would be proud. Hoping to get some time tonight to throw together my white weeny deck from Time Spiral too, giving me two new decks to try tonight.

This Sunday is my Dad's 51st Birthday. w00t!

Not much else to report. Want to work out, but promised Bob I would help him unload his Pods tonight, so that will have to substitute. On the upside, no work on Friday, so I can work out then.

Also randomly got excited about the Magic Site today and came up with some more ideas. When I was building that one deck I was lamenting over the terrible search capabilities available to deckbuilders today, and that was probably the spark that got me thinking on it. Just hope I can get all of this work stuff out of the way soon so I can work on Magic Site without feeling guilty.

Que Lo Cumplas Feliz

Two birthdays to celebrate today. First is Kathy's, who is 20. Unfortunately, she is in Texas so hard to do much celebrating on that one. But, happy birthday! Second is the World Wide Web. Yep, today the web portion of the internet (they are different, if you didn't know) has it's sweet sixteen. Your webpages want cars. If you are interested, here is a link to the history of the world wide web.

Harry pasted me this link to a sweet new sport that I think everyone should take up. What I think would be really funny is to extend this by getting about 8-10 people in a store to simultaneously run out when the alarm goes off. Everyone would just split, running in a pack to the nearest burger place. It would be hilarious.

Been mostly doing chores around the apartment and such. While doing laundry yesterday I started reading the Economist again. I had forgotten how much I loved it. I still have a lot to go (been distracted), but I just find it so interesting and in depth about things. It is quite the brilliant weekly magazine (over 100 pages about the entire world every week). If you want to be up to date on politics, economics, business, technology, and new books about said topics, then it's definitely worth a look.

Also read a really insightful article entitled Mind the Gap by Paul Graham. He discusses the idea of the 'income gap' in capitalist societies and has some very good points. I especially like his description of the "Daddy Model of Wealth" and agree completely. As a recent college student myself, I know how it is to view the world through those eyes. The basic idea is that most kids and students see wealth as something that comes from a central source and gets distributed, hence feeling that it should always be fairly distributed, whatever fair means. They consider it injustice if the distribution is not fair. Graham argues that wealth is not distributed from a central source, but created by everyone everywhere. A job is by definition an exchange of money for your wealth creation. You create wealth by doing whatever it is you do, and in exchange for that wealth the company gives you money, since that is an easy way to trade wealth you don't want (the newly painted house or peice of software), for wealth you do want (food, tvs, fancy cell phones).

I've had sort of a crisis of belief lately, and not in the religious sense. The more I read and understand about economics, management, and business, the more my views shift on such things. The crisis is that now I can't really agree with either political party on things. I find the Democrats too protectionist, and pandering (the minimum wage hike and capital gains tax hikes make me ill). I find the Republicans too paternalistic (gay marriage, stem cells... legislating their religious beliefs), and pandering (flag burning amendments, etc). Also, both parties just seem so corrupt and apt to just pass tons and tons of pork. We need a new party. In fact, time to follow through on an idea I had. Stay tuned for that one I guess.

In more personal news, finally bought groceries after working out today. Going to try and stop eating out every meal and eat more fruits and veggies. I already can lift more in just about every exercise than ever before, and it's only been a month now. I am definitely more focused and motivated to go work out than ever before as well. Hopefully I will keep that up.

Mmmmm, orange juice! And with that, I'm done.

Straight No Chaser

So this week was quite the terrible one, but I choose not to pour out my sorrows to teh interwebs, because then I'd just be another whiney blogger. Things are hard, but they will get better, one way or the other. Think right now I am living on a strange sense of denial and fools hope for the future, but I imagine that will kick me in the nuts eventually.

Last couple days, my life has been Magic, basketball, and flash games. Stumbleupon.com leads me to such glory as Storm the House 2, which everyone should beat at least once in order to see the glorious hidden weapon.

Magic has been fun, and is getting me ramped up for deckbuilding again, which should lead to more magic playing, which should lead to more motivation to work on the site.

Oh, and working out is a good waste of a couple hours a day.

Not incredibly much else happening lately, other than aforementioned sorrow. I try to stay either busy or asleep, as time to think usually goes poorly. Also kind of avoiding talking to my parents, as I just don't want to explain anything. Guess I'll have to give in to their calls eventually. Normally I enjoy talking to them.

Spain is 11 weeks and one day away. Looking forward to having something to work towards (schoolwise) again. Not really sure what I'll do after that, it's a tossup between grad school or staying in spain at the moment. We shall see. Most likely depends on my motivational state at the time. Another option is coming home to make millions with Bob. I particularly like that option. Obviously I'll do that.

The cats are absurdly hyper right now. I'm sure it will end in tragedy. Anal Kitty looks like a coked-out-timebomb right now. I opened a drawer and she jumped about three feet in the air, which for her is a lot of exerted effort.

Anyway, my general rule when blogging is that if you degenerate into talking about the cats flying (yes flying) around your room, then you are done. So I will be done, after pasting in the following lyrics that struck me as appropriate during my drive home the other day.

"drink life as it comes
straight no chaser
straight no chaser
drink life as it comes
straight no chaser
...
keep on driving
hair left morning wet
there's nothing like losing you
there's nothing like losing you"
Bush, Straight No Chaser

(Don't worry, this blog won't get too sappy, just indulge me for a bit, as things are tough right now.)

"You do something to me that I can't explain.
So would I be out of line if I said 'I miss you'?

I see your picture.
I smell your skin on
The empty pillow next to mine.
You have only been gone ten days,
But already I'm wasting away.
I know I'll see you again
Whether far or soon.
But I need you to know that I care,
And I miss you."
Incubus, I Miss You

Con Mis Manos

So this week was entirely devoted to errands and paperwork.

Got hotel reservations for Texas trip on Sunday. Finally got my ex-landlord to mail me the check he owes me (so he claims). Cleaned a bit, and got mounting brackets for my parent's plasma bought. Also bought a slew of birthday gifts, as I have a bunch of birthdays coming up.

Got Student Visa Application for Spain finished and turned in. That involved a physical and doctor's letter, a letter from my insurance company, money order, two page application, passport photos, a plane ticket, copies of everything, ad infinitum. Just glad to have it out of the way. On the plus side, for a mere $60, KU will run my application to Chicago and pick up my Passport for me when the Visa is done. This saves me two trips to Chicago and much sanity. Thank you KU study abroad people!

Now I need to actually pay the school in Ronda. But, of course, I am stupid and sent my passport off with my Visa app without writing down the number. The credit card payment form for Ronda requires a passport number. Oh well, I'll find a way out of this.

Did I mention the plane ticket? I officially leave on January 30th at 2pm... in case any of you are counting down or anything.

Tomorrow is my brother's birthday. He will be 20. A strange thought. Going to spend it eating lunch with our grandparents then dinner and movie with our parents. Will be fun. Then off to Texas!

A generally successful week, even if I spent over 10% of my annual salary on plane tickets, hotels, and tuition. Anyway, off I go to pass the time. Just want to fast forward a few days!

Halloween

So I am back in Kansas.

Tuesday and Wednesday were non-stop loading of trucks. Got both the 24 footer and 16 footer packed like a chinese jigsaw puzzle. If you are wondering, I'm not refering to an actual chinese jigsaw puzzle, if there is such a thing, but I have found that sticking the word 'chinese' in as an adjective makes things sound more complicated or foreign, and I am all about exaggeration.

Then Wednesday we drove for 3 hours, then 7 hours Thursday (pouring rain the whole way), then a final 5 hours on Friday (also in the rain). Highlights of the trip were Western Kentucky, which was really foggy and hilly and fall-leafy and the Ohio River, which was just sweet looking in the rain.

So that is why I haven't updated. Because I'm sure that just bored you.

Got back to hero wars and a halloween party. Both fun. Also randomly got my laptop rebate check. Still no check from our evil ex-landlord though. Going to have to call him and hassle him again, because it's been like two weeks since I last did that.

Anyway, not sure why I am awake after four hours sleep... it just gets so hot in our apartment. I look forward to a winter with windows open!

Flossing

Kathy just compared Blogging to Flossing in the fact that it's hard to consistently do both. So, being brilliant like I am, I go and create a post about it, mainly to avoid missing a day. I guess it's past midnight so it will look like I missed a day anyway. It was worth a shot.

Back at the parents soon-to-be-ex-townhome. Tomorrow will be a fun filled day of loading trucks. I should be asleep so I can be helpful tomorrow, but instead I am up on AIM and soon to break out some hero wars if Mark and Bob are still kicking it. They are both lame and can't host, so expect me to do it. I guess I should be good for something ln life!

Nothing awe-inspiring happened in my head today. Therefore, I have nothing to report. We saw a sweet Air Force Museum and drove for most of the evening.

My mom's cat is scared to death of me.

La Playa

So I am currently down here in Destin, Florida with my parents. The beaches are very white, just like the pictures.

I managed to wake up today and log on to work. Yeah, today is Sunday. Nevermind the fact that I don't work on Sundays. For some reason it made sense in my freshly awakened mind. So after I realized no one else was on, I looked at the date. What can I say? I am brilliant.

The flights down here were interesting. My first one was at 6am, so I had to wake up at 3:25am to make it on time from Lawrence. My brother drove me so I could avoid parking up there, and I'm sure he was glad to get back to sleep. I always hate saying goodbye at airports. It's better if everyone is going to the same place. Most of the time it's not like an emotional-see-you-in-forever goodbye... but I've had enough of those to know that they suck. Ironically, one of my easier goodbyes turned out to be the maybe-forever kind. Had I known, I would've said something memorable.

Today's music will be Nine Inch Nails. La vida, a veces, es dura, pero la superamos y crecimos.

Buena Suerte.

Dilbert is Brilliant

Related to my earlier rambling about Roth IRAs, a friend pasted me a link to Dilbert's Financial Plan.

All I can say is: Brilliant!

The article has more, but the entire plan is summed up in nine points.

1. Make a will.


2. Pay off your credit cards.


3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support.


4. Fund your 401k to the maximum.


5. Fund your IRA to the maximum.


6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it.


7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account.


8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement.


9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio.

Your Time Has Come

For the record, I love Audioslave.

Today is my last day in the office at work. From now on, I'll be telecommuting half time from wherever I happen to be. My last day has been stellar so far, but I am definitely looking forward to 5:30.

In other non-interesting-to-anyone-but-me news, I maxed out my Roth IRA for 2006 today. Yay for retirement accounts when you are 23!

Really though, 23 is probably the time a Roth IRA makes the most sense. Since it grows tax free and allows tax free withdrawals at retirement, it is relatively easier to predict final value than a taxed account. Also, since it is after tax money there isn't the headache of dealing with paycheck withholdings and changing employers. If you are older, say in your 50s, the regular IRA setup makes more sense tax-wise, because you contribute pre-tax money. However, in your 20s, contributing post-tax (especially since income tax rates are at historic lows) and enjoying tax free growth totally makes sense.

This year the contribution cap is $4000, and while you can withdraw contributions at any time without penalty, you cannot touch your earnings until you are 59.5 years old. Assuming that the cap grows with inflation, you earn a decent 8% return annually, and you max it out each year until you are 59.5, you can celebrate your 60th birthday with a cool $1.23 million dollars (around $400k in today's dollars). That won't buy you a mansion, but I figure that is not a bad deal for a relatively small annual contribution. Living on the interest alone would be an improvement on my current standard of living.

Not to mention, if you take a little risk (i.e. Invest in stock indexes rather than money market accounts and CDs), you might achieve a yeild higher than 8% ... like say 10 or 12%. This nets you $1.94 million or $3.13 million respectively. And, if you are Warren Buffett, you earn 21.5% annually with your mad skillz, giving you a silly $42.55 million on retirement day.

I'm sure everyone is dozing off about now. Or maybe just skipping paragraphs until they don't see dollar signs. I'm honestly just a big fan of the Roth IRA (and the 401k provided there is employer matching) and thought I would pimp it out a bit. So class dismissed, enjoy your weekend!

Goobacks and n00blets...

Today's word of the day is 'n00blets' ... if you haven't ever heard of 13375p34k, then you are missing out on some hilarious mutilation of English. I always got immense amusement out of l33t and general slang from teh interwebs, but reading the Wikipedia article (linked above) on it today introduced me to the awesome word 'n00blets,' which made me giggle for at least 20 minutes. When I hear n00blets I think of little whiney Hero Wars players in a bowl of milk... and I am the spoon. My goal is to use that word at least once a day from now on.

I particularly enjoyed the following passages:

Leet, like other hacker slang, enjoys a looser grammar than standard English. The loose grammar, just like loose spelling, encodes some level of emphasis, ironic or otherwise. A reader must rely more on intuitive parsing of Leet to determine the meaning of a sentence rather than the actual sentence structure. In particular, speakers of Leet are fond of verbing nouns, turning verbs into nouns (and back again) as forms of emphasis (e.g. "Bob rocks" is weaker than "Bob r0xx0rz" (note spelling) is weaker than "Bob is t3h r0xx0rz" (note grammar)). Leet, like in other hacker slang, employs overgeneralization in construction of new words. For example, if haxored is the past tense of the verb "to hack" (hack → haxor → haxored), then blowzored would be easily understood to be the past tense conjugation of "to blow," even if the reader had not seen that particular word before.

... and ...

In some cases, because the exclamation symbol (!) resides on the same key as the number one ("1") on English keyboards, over-exclamation can be accidentally (or purposely) typed with extraneous numerical digits, owing to the excitement of the typist: "This is really exciting!!!!!11". This was especially likely in the context of fast-paced online multiplayer games, where typing carefully leaves the gamer vulnerable to attack. Some deliberately type the numbers, while others take the exclamation further and sarcastically replace some of the digits with words: "This is really exciting!!!!!!11eleven1111one", or perhaps even "This is really exciting!!!!!!111onetwo".

... and this one reminded me of Hamid/DJ/Bob/lame players of Final everywhere ...

In addition to variations on punctuation-based emphasis, it is common to combine two (or more) words and capitalize them to show emphasis. Perhaps most common would be the combination of OMG and WTF to produce OMGWTF. For irony, some will then add BBQHAX to the end (BBQ refering to the word barbeque). This ending generally has the same meaning as the saying "..with gravy," commonly added to the end of sentences. This creates OMGWTFBBQHAX.

Tomorrow is my last day of work and Saturday morning I board a plane for the land of Georgia. Once there, my parents and I are headed for Destin, Florida for a few days, and then back to their place to pack up and drive everything back up to Gardner. I should be back in Lawrence by the 28th or so. Then I will have a fun filled week of getting all my work requests done for the next release, followed by a trip down to Texas to see Kathy for a week or so. So much to do!

Ademas, he escribido esa parte para Bob, para que el pueda leer un poquito español y ponerse enfadado. Gooback!

Hasta Luego.

Bienvenidos a Ronda!

So I open up my email this morning when I get to work to find an email from the Program Director in Ronda, Joaquin. I knew Joaquin decently well when I was in class there, and he wanted to tell me that my application has been accepted and that he is excited to have me back. Yay for that! Hopefully all the paperwork will arrive by mail soon enough for me to apply for my student visa.

Visas must be applied for in person at the nearest Spanish Consulate (Chicago), so I guess I have a couple trips to make in the coming months. I might be able to find a law firm to legally represent me at the Consulate, saving me a trip, but not sure the cost would be worth it. A short trip to Chicago really isn't that expensive, and there is a lot of cool stuff to see there. If any of you know someone that goes to Chicago regularly and would be willing to drop my packet off and pick it up and mail it to me, that would randomly be sweet.

I really can't wait to go back to Spain. I wonder how things will be different for me this time. There were definitely two stages to my last experience there, and I imagine this trip will give me a whole new viewpoint. For one, I won't have any pre-existing bonds with other students in English. You see, one of my observations last time was that you interact with people in whatever language you initially use when you meet them. My fellow KU students, from the last trip, and I started in English in the airport in Atlanta, and it was really hard to move past that. My roommate, Mattias (from Switzerland), and I started in Spanish, and had an easy time maintaining that, even though he spoke excellent English. This time I am hoping to meet everyone in Spanish, and force myself to use only Spanish for at least the first month, in the interest of avoiding the convenience of English. I was perfectly happy with my Spanish progress on my last trip, but there is always room for improvement!

Anyway, I should get down to the business of setting up my laptop for telecommuting. Just couldn't wait to share the good news! Hasta luego!

Ovaltine!

So after the last post, I got home, changed, and went to the Rec Center for the first time in three months. It was quite awesome. I mean, I admittedly did only a light work out of about 45 mins, but I felt great doing it. Even on only three hours of sleep. Further proof that the little naysaying voice in my head tells me only lies.

"You are too tired to work out Drew!"

"You can just start that after you quit your job."

"I need more sleep. Reset the alarm."

All lies. I am making a 2006 New Years resolution now. I know, it's only 10.5 months late. I am going to let that little voice do its talking and promptly tell it to go to hell. When it comes to accomplishing something in your life, being mad at the voices in your head can help. It's a perverse psychology, but it has worked on Day 1 at least!

Tomorrow's list of things to do includes waking up in time to eat breakfast, getting my personal laptop ready for telecommuting, working on Project CdR (which I started today), working out again, calling Stu about going out Thursday night, and fixing the subwoofer in my car. And, since I have 10 hours at work, I'll probably try to read more about Ruby on Rails and Migrations.

I just had a brilliant idea! Going to take the Magic Cards to Georgia with me so I can come back prepared to stomp Bob and Mark's respective asses into the ground with a million new decks. Yet another thing I have been putting off doing too long.

Oh, and my glass of Ovaltine should make you jealous... ahh the vitamins and protein!

Random Articles

I really enjoyed reading this article about motivation by Steve Pavlina. I particularly identify with bullets 1, 2, 3, and 8.

I have been reading Steve Pavlina articles (mostly the ones on running a business) for some time now. His hippy new age living articles I can pass on, but the entrepreneurship ones seem quite insightful. 10 Reasons You Should Never Get A Job was the article that convinced me to quit my job, for instance.

Speaking of jobs... time to go home!

Las Primeras Palabras

Ok, yeah, I have a blog suddenly. Despite my past hatred for these blog-in-a-can sites, I have decided to swallow my pride and admit that it IS easier than writing it yourself (and frankly, it's not such a glamorous project anyway) so count me as blogger number thirty six million one hundred ninety six thousand nine hundred forty two. And sadly, that is just on this site. Oh the unedited and poorly researched filth created by and for the masses! I can't wait to write stuff that no one cares about!

This is my last full-time week at work. So far, it has been a caffeine induced ethereal haze of meetings and good-bye luncheons. Free food, so I can't complain. Starting next week, I'll be moving to 20 hours a week of telecommuting... hence my blog title. I plan to use the extra free time to accomplish all sorts of stuff that I have been putting off... like the magic site, making that Warcraft III map, getting in shape, cooking food, vacuuming, etc.

Yes. Vacuuming.

In other news, there remain approximately threeish months until I once again inhabit Spain. I submitted an application to the school online the other day, but haven't heard a response yet, leading me to consider alternate plots such as illegal immigration. Well, not so much illegal as quasi-legal, but I figured I would try and work in a hotbed political topic so as to attract attention from other self-righteous bloggers who have an opinion. What a nefarious trick, luring them here with unimportant-to-anyone-that-isn't-batshit-insane topics like illegal immigration and then serving them a heaping pile of daily Drew thoughts. I am a sneaky bastard. An aspiring Fiburonsk if you will.

I was reading a Wired Blog yesterday and really liked this little tidbit (quoted for you in full).

At the bottom of the Ars Technica article, you'll find the sentence, "Since the RIAA began filing lawsuits against suspected file sharers in 2003, not a single one has gone all the way to trial." Thank you. Not enough people know about that (or, while we're on the topic, that no one has ever even been sued for downloading music, only for sharing it).

You see, I have an intense hatred for the RIAA, so can't resist a good potshot at them. It's like therapy... or something.

Other things you should know about. Google is installing enough solar panels on their main campus to provide 100% of their power needs. Also, Dolly Donut Gems are not near as tasty as Mrs. Freshley's. I have empirical evidence to support that, in the form of my opinion. Take that!

Also of note, sleep is good. I want some of that goodness right about now.

Been trying to catch up on the Ruby on Rails blog today. I have read some neat stuff about ERb Optimization and the new improved Ruby Language site. I plan to spend my remaining hours here reading up on Rails Migrations so I can hopefully work on that a bit tonight.

Well, enough of me for now. I plan to update this daily, more as a means to chronicle my day for myself than for anyone else's pleasure... but you are welcome to follow along. Adios!